It soon became obvious that the owners had departed the premises. The front doors opened to cavernous rooms emptied of all furnishings. The place was in show condition, however. The black-and-white marble floors gleamed. The massive crystal chandelier in the entryway sparkled. Not a speck of dust danced in the sunbeams slanting through the curtained front windows.
With a hand wrapped around her arm like a vise, Lauren was guided down a long, central hall to the high-ceilinged sunroom that ran the length of the back of the house. Its tall windows looked out on a marble pool surrounded by larger-than-life white statuary and acres of green lawn. The estate’s high stucco wall enclosed it all, like the walls of an impregnable fortress.
Sliding open the glass doors, her kidnapper took her into the bright sunshine. Like the interior, the exterior was meticulously maintained. No weeds poked out of the lush green carpet. No algae had dared form on the sides of the pool. A well-mannered hum rose from the pool’s motor, neatly concealed behind a latticework screen. Chlorine mingled with the scent of bougainvillea and honeysuckle.
“Over there.”
Following the curt instruction, she made her way to a grotto formed by a half circle of Greek columns. Climbing vines shaded the grotto’s interior, which held a grouping of marble benches and tables.
“Damned place ain’t got no place to sit but out here,” the one called Joey muttered. “Next time, we tell that pansy-assed Realtor friend of the boss’s to pick a joint with chairs and a TV in it, for God’s sake.”
Disgusted, he whipped a cigarette pack out of his pocket and lit up.
“You might as well sit down,” he grumbled to Lauren. “We got some time to kill yet.”
Lauren sank onto a marble bench, her wrists still taped and her shoulders already aching from the strain. She swallowed, trying desperately to work some moisture in her throat.
“Some time until what?”
“Until your boyfriend takes a one-way ride out into the desert,” he answered, carelessly.
She must have made some sound. A moan or a little cry. The older one, the one whose gun had bruised her ribs, snarled a warning.
“Shut the hell up, Joey.”
“Hey, I was only answerin’ her question.”
“You got a mouth on you that won’t quit, you know that?” Shaking his head, the older man shot back his sleeve to check his watch. “I’m going to get things set up. I’ll contact you when it’s time to make the call. Got the phone?”
The younger man patted his breast pocket. “I got it.”
“Okay. Keep an eye on her.”
Joey flicked her a dismissive glance. “She ain’t goin’ nowheres.”
“Just to make sure, tape her ankles.” Digging a roll of white tape out of his pocket, he tossed it to his partner and strode off.
When the pudgy Joey sauntered toward her, Lauren coiled her muscles. If the bastard got within kicking range, he was going down hard. To her crushing disappointment, he stopped a pace or two away and eyed her through a curl of cigarette smoke.
“You try anything with me, doll, and I’ll put you out cold. Cross your ankles and lift ’em. Come on, lift ’em.”
The vague idea that she could bring her knees up into his chin disappeared the moment Lauren lifted her legs. The angle was wrong. She couldn’t get any leverage at all, and nearly tumbled off the bench when he grabbed her ankles and banded them with tape. Hiding her frustration and fear, she shot him a look of utter loathing.
Chuckling, he let her feet drop. They hit the marble with a thunk. “Come on, doll! You didn’t think the boss was going to let Jannisek rat on him, did you?”
“But…”
She was about to tell him they were too late, that Dave had already told everything he knew. The abrupt realization that she’d make herself expendable with that revelation froze her into silence.
As it turned out, she didn’t have to tell him anything. He guessed her thoughts with terrifying accuracy.
“You’re thinking that he’s already spilled his guts, ain’t you? That we took too long getting here?”
She didn’t answer, but the garrulous mobster didn’t seem to need encouragement. Shaking another cigarette out of his pack, he lit it with the stub of the first. The butt flew in a glowing arc across the grotto.
“We didn’t know where he was until we heard ’bout all the feds convergin’ on this place,” Joey confided. “By the time we got here, they already had him boxed up.”
“So what…” Lauren wet her lips. “…what good does it do to try to get at him now?”
“Well, it’s like this. Your lover boy’s gonna swear everything he told ’em was a lie, see? The boss’s lawyers will have a field day if the feds try to pin anything on him without no witness to back it up.”
Lauren’s heart pumped. Although she suspected she knew the answer to the question that seared into her mind, she asked it anyway.
“Why would he say he lied?”
Smiling, he took a long, lazy drag. “You, doll. If he wants to see you alive again before he dies, he’ll eat his words.”
Lauren hated him in that minute. Hated him and his pal with the same intensity as she despised the man who’d sent them out to Palm Springs.
“And if he doesn’t?”
His amused smile stayed in place, but his eyes telegraphed a remorseless unconcern that sent a fresh wave of terror through her veins.
“Then you’ll meet with an unfortunate accident and the boss’s lawyers will have to work a little harder.”
He was enjoying this, she realized. The fat little bastard was enjoying this. Anger worked its way through her suffocating fear.
“They’ll know,” she spit out. “If anything happens to me or to Dave, the police will know who’s behind it.”
His shoulders lifted. “As the boss says, knowing is one thing, proving is another.”
His callous attitude toward murder stopped Lauren’s lungs. It was several seconds before she could speak again.
“Where is Mullvane? Why isn’t he here?”
He didn’t blink when she said the name. She knew then that Joey and his partner didn’t intend for her to leave Palm Springs alive. Her or David Jannisek.
“You don’t think he’s gonna show his face around here with the feds swarmin’ all over the place, do you? Nah, he’ll sit tight in Phoenix while we finish the job them other idiots botched six weeks ago.”
“What makes you think you can finish anything?” she scoffed, putting all she had into a desperate effort to keep him talking. “Dave’s in federal custody. They’re not going to let him just walk into a trap.”
“Get real, doll. Your friend’s just a little fish, and they’re after the big barracudas.” He tapped his shirt pocket, his eyes glinting with malicious amusement. “When we call ol’ Dave and send him for a nice long drive, them cops will be crawlin’ up his backside the whole way. They’re gonna find a little surprise waitin’ for ’em when they get where we tell ’em to go. Something that goes boom, see?”
Lauren saw. Oh, God, she saw! Dave would drive out to the appointed spot. Marsh would go with him. Or go alone, standing in for the real target, just as Lauren had stood in for Becky. He wouldn’t pass up the chance to snare Mullvane, or at least snare these direct links to Mullvane.
She couldn’t let these scum use her to bait another deadly trap. She had to get away. Had to warn Marsh.
Desperation pounded in her ears. The sound of her own frustration and fear drowned out everything else. Not until she’d dragged in long, steadying gulps of the chlorine-and-nicotine scented air did her thundering panic subside. She had to think! Had to stop wallowing in fear and helplessness and do something!
Forcing herself to look with a less-panicked eye, she searched the grotto for a sharp projection or ragged edge or even a rough spot on the marble columns, anything that might cut through the tape on her wrists. The pristine surroundings defeated her. She couldn’t find so much as a promising rock.
Her gaze caught on the white latticework screen a few yards away. She could hear the hum of a motor hidden behind it. Her stomach jumped.
What had Marsh said when he showed her how to work the generator at the cabin?
Don’t touch any engine parts while it’s running. They get hot. Real hot.
The motor behind that screen was an engine. Maybe, just maybe it got hot, too. If she could distract Joey, even for a few minutes, and crawl over….
That desperate scheme fizzled even as it formed. Pool pump makers wouldn’t manufacture products that might burn their wealthy clients.
But…
Her gaze dropped to the cigarette butt lying on the marble just inches from her foot. Its tip still glowed a faint coral.
She eyed the man slouched on the bench opposite hers through the screen of her lashes. He looked almost bored, his fingers tapping the marble table while he waited for the call that would trigger at least one, perhaps more, cold-blooded murders.
Swallowing her rage and fear, Lauren lifted her head.
“Can I have a cigarette?”
“Yeah, why not?”
He lit a fresh one from his own and placed it between her lips. She hadn’t smoked since those few packs she’d experimented with in college, but she drew the tar and nicotine into her lungs like a half-drowned man would air.
Chapter 15
“Interstate Ten. Mile marker fifty-seven. I’ve got it.”
His veins icy with fury, Marsh listened through headphones as Jannisek repeated the instructions that had just been passed to him. In the taut silence gripping the group gathered around the table, Marsh could almost hear the tension snapping along Jannisek’s nerves. His own had cracked like summer lightning with the first ring of the phone. Clutching the receiver with sweat-slick fingers, the hotelier followed the instructions Marsh had drilled into him over and over.
“Let me speak to her.”
The short, pithy reply roiled Marsh’s stomach. Tasting bitter gall, he bit back on the response he wanted to fling at the scum on the other end of the line.
“Damn you,” Jannisek snarled. “I’m not driving anywhere until I talk to her and know she’s okay. Put her on!”
Marsh held his breath. So did everyone else in the room, including, he saw in a quick sweep, Becky. White-faced and trembling, she looked even more frightened now than she had when she’d burst into the suite with the news that Lauren had disappeared.
Marsh’s gut twisted. It felt more like a year than a few hours. He hadn’t taken a whole breath since a maid reported seeing an auburn-haired woman climb into a car with two men. With only a vague description of the vehicle to work with, Marsh had exploded into action. In short order, he called the resort security officer, the state highway patrol and the local police department. He’d ordered roadblocks set up, sent men to sweep the airport and transformed the suite into a pulsing command post. Despite the frenzy of activity, they’d found nothing, heard nothing, until a few moments ago.
“Dave!”
Lauren’s desperate cry almost ripped Marsh’s heart from his chest.
“I’m here,” Jannisek replied swiftly.
“Don’t do it! They—!”
The sound of a vicious slap was followed by a gasp that knifed into Marsh’s soul. Then the same, smoke-roughened voice that had issued the curt instructions a moment ago repeated them.
“Mile marker fifty-seven, thirty minutes from now. You miss it by a minute, pal, and Becky here is dead.”
“You hurt her again, you son of a bitch, and…”
Dave was talking to an empty line. Tight with fury, he started to slam the receiver down, but remembered just in time that he was supposed to keep the line open as long as possible.
His empty threat was still hanging in the air when Marsh tore off his headphones and spun to a third listener hunched over a metal suitcase. According to the FBI technician who’d lugged the kit in when he’d first arrived two days ago, it contained the latest high-tech electronic scanning and recording equipment. Marsh could only be thankful the FBI had brought their gear along in anticipation of unexpected contingencies like this one.
“Give me a minute,” the tech muttered. “The call came from a digital cell phone. I’m trying to pinpoint the signal tower that relayed it.”
A muscle jumping in the side of his jaw, Marsh strode back to the table. “Mile marker fifty-seven,” he snapped to the uniformed officer who’d augmented their team. “Where is it?”
The local jabbed a finger at a spot on the topographical map spread across the table.
“Smack in the middle of the desert. They didn’t give us much time. It’ll take us fifteen, twenty minutes to get there. The land’s as flat as roadkill along that stretch of Interstate 10,” he added. “You can see for ten miles in every direction.”
One of the FBI operatives exploded. “Great! We won’t be able to pre-position any forces before we send in a decoy.”
“We’re not sending in a decoy,” Jannisek said, with a shake of his head.
The flat statement wrung a cry from Becky. “Dave! No!”
“They’ll be watching for a switch. I can’t gamble with Lauren’s life. I’m driving out there myself.”
“You’ll be taking along a passenger,” Marsh informed him grimly. “We’ll get you suited in body armor and I’ll…”
“Hey! I’ve got it!”
The triumphant cry spun them all around. Becky’s nails dug into Dave’s arm as the technician tugged off his earphones. With a rustle of paper, he folded an aerial map down to single sheet size and stabbed at it with a pencil.
“The relaying tower that forwarded the call is on the east side of the city right…here.”
Marsh snatched the map out of his hands. “What’s the radius of signals that tower receives?”
“About three miles. I’ll have to call the phone company to verify the precise number.”
“Call them!”
Clutching Dave’s arm, Becky crowded between him and Marsh. She hadn’t changed in the tense hour since Lauren disappeared. She still wore her bathing suit and cover-up, her skin was scented with suntan lotion. She’d hardly spoken after her initial burst of near panic.
She hadn’t uttered a word of blame. Hadn’t thrown so much as an accusing glance Marsh’s way. She didn’t have to.
She could never blame him for putting Lauren in harm’s way as much as he blamed himself. If anything happened to her…if he lost her now…
Grabbing a felt-tipped pen, he slashed a circle on the city map. “Three miles encompasses roughly this area.”
The Palm Springs police officer leaned forward. “I know that neighborhood. It’s all big estates. There aren’t more than eight, ten houses inside that circle.”
“Get some men out there knocking on doors. Now!”
“You got it!”
While the local snatched up the phone, the choices machine-gunned through Marsh’s mind. He could go with Dave on the chance that Lauren would be staked out like a goat waiting for slaughter at mile marker fifty-seven. Or he could follow his instincts and chase down the exact location of the call.
His gut told him that the men who’d taken her wouldn’t transport her to the rendezvous point. They had to know the city was swarming with cops looking for her, that choppers and snipers with high-powered scopes would converge on the area. They wanted Dave there. They’d planned something—a time-fuse bomb, pressure-sensitive plastic explosives, something!—for Jannisek. And they didn’t need Lauren to make their kill.
Shooting out his wrist, Marsh checked his watch. If they were going to make the rendezvous point on time, he had one, maybe two minutes to decide. Icy sweat pooled at the base of his spine. If he chose wrong…if anything happened to
Lauren before he found her…
“Are you a betting man, Henderson?”
Marsh’s head jackknifed up.
“Sometimes.”
“I’m thinking that the odds are they won’t bring Lauren to mile marker fifty-seven.”
A muscle ticked at the side of his jaw. “So am I.”
Now!
She had to do it now!
Too many minutes had ticked by since that terrifying phone call. Lauren had to call Marsh. Had to stop him and Dave from taking that fatal drive.
She didn’t doubt for a moment Marsh would accompany Jannisek. He’d know Mullvane or some of his henchmen had set the trap. He’d tear them apart to keep them from hurting her as they’d hurt his sister-in-law.
She had to do it now!
Her throat rasped from the noxious weeds she’d forced herself to beg from Joey. The side of her face still ached from his vicious swipe. At least the bastard had felt enough remorse to light another cigarette and place it between her shaking lips.
He was puffing away on another, too. Antsy now that the end was near, he’d pushed off the marble bench. His back to Lauren, he ambled along the terrace, sneering at the over-sized statues of Greek gods that lined the pool. No doubt the little scum was envious of the gods’ magnificent endowments, Lauren thought viciously.
It was time to implement her plan.
She swallowed a sob of laughter. She could almost see Marsh’s grin when she told him how she’d planned her escape, step by step, phase by phase. Now, all she had to do was pull it off!
Her whole body tensing, she sucked in a last drag. Then slowly, so slowly, she twisted to one side and opened her lips. The filter stuck to her dry lips for terrifying seconds before it dropped to the bench beside her. Almost sobbing with relief that it hadn’t bounced off the seat, she angled to one side and fumbled behind her with her bound hands.
The glowing tip grazed her fingers. She felt a stinging burn and bit down hard on her lower lip. Gently, not wanting to knock off the burning ember, she turned it end on end to grasp the filter.
Mistaken Identity Page 16
