by Reid, Joseph
I glanced down at the heart on my forearm.
Sarah and I had been like that. So consumed with one another that the world around us seemed to melt away.
Sarah.
The person I’d failed before Max.
Although not the first.
My first failure had been Clarence.
My mentor. My friend.
A man who’d invited me into his home. Made me part of his family.
Who’d ended up killing himself . . . because of me.
That was the secret Shirley and my godkids could never know, the one I constantly feared she’d divine. The reason I had so much to make up to the family.
Clarence had treated me like a brother, or a son. He’d genuinely loved me.
Loved me enough that what I did made him want to swallow a bullet.
Sarah had loved me, too.
Not just said the words, but shown it. And all she’d ever asked for was my love in return.
In the end, I’d gotten her killed, too. A fact her family had not let me forget at her memorial.
And now there was Max.
Poor Max. I’d failed her, too. Spectacularly.
Blood on my hands again.
Up onstage, the rock song ended with a flourish. Occupied by my thoughts, I only half noticed the band shifting around. Before I realized what had happened, the nasal, flat singer had moved to a steel guitar. He started a slow, mournful-sounding song, and soon the words were slicing into me.
I might not follow country music, but I recognize Hank Williams’s “Your Cheatin’ Heart” when I hear it.
My lips began quivering, and tears started to gather in my eyes. But as they filled like cups beneath a faucet, another different feeling came over me.
A pressure, almost.
A squeezing tightness, like a cramp, down deep in my gut.
But it didn’t stay there. It spread. Up though my chest. Down my good arm.
My hand clenched into a fist, my arm actually trembling from the strength of it. The hair on my arms and neck flared up.
Max wasn’t dead yet. Not like the others.
And she didn’t have to be.
Unless I let her.
As I shot to my feet, my chair clattered over behind me, but I didn’t pay attention. I was already several steps away, stalking past the lip-locked kids, heading for other parts of the terminal.
I strode to the far end of the airport, then reversed course and slowed my pace. Told myself to be in the moment. To let the ideas flow from whatever surrounded me.
No bolts of inspiration struck.
Each person I passed, I checked up and down, looking for something—anything—I could glean from them. Asking myself what they might be subconsciously telling me. Every time, the only sound I heard was silence.
It was like staring at the blank pages of my pad. Where ideas used to seem to spring from my hand onto the paper, now there was nothing.
I’d nearly reached security again, and in the distance I could see the stage.
My steps slowed even more.
I was passing the food court, a cluster of barbecue and Tex-Mex places with a small collection of tables spread out in front of them. The seating area was separated from the terminal by a waist-high wall, and I drew up to it, leaning my good shoulder against a column that rose to the vaulted ceiling overhead.
The combined smell of rich, grilling meat and sweet, tangy sauce stuck in my nose. My mouth watered and my stomach grumbled, both realizing they couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten. But as part of my brain started cataloging the best-tasting brisket I’d ever had, my eyes landed on something else.
A large family—parents, plus four or five kids—had pushed two tables together. Everyone was seated except the father, who hovered around the family, delivering food he’d retrieved. The kids were impatient, nearly climbing over each other to reach the fries.
What struck me, though, was the mother.
When the father placed a tray in front of her, she eyed the food for a minute, then glanced up at him with a cockeyed expression.
“This is not what I wanted,” she said.
The father’s chin dropped to his chest. But it was her words that stuck with me . . .
Not what I wanted.
So simple. Yet they cut right to the bone.
Not what I wanted.
Since the start, I’d wondered why the gang wanted to kill Max. They’d massacred the agents at LAX. Attacked my house. Tried to shoot us out of the sky. All, I’d assumed, in an extreme effort to put at least one bullet into Max’s head. That’s what they’d promised in the threatening notes to Max and her father, so I had always believed that was their goal.
The fact they hadn’t accomplished it was something I’d chalked up to a combination of dumb luck and a tiny bit of skill on my part.
But.
At Otra, Max had been motionless on the floor, out cold. You couldn’t have asked for an easier target. Trapped outside in the hallway, I certainly wasn’t stopping them: easiest thing in the world to cap her on the ground.
My mind flashed to LAX, how the gunmen had done exactly that to the wounded FBI agent. Quick trigger pull, three-shot burst. The agent’s head turned into pulp.
But they hadn’t done that to Max.
They’d taken her.
Why?
Why not just shoot her and be done with it?
Pushing myself off the column, I started walking again. Like the drive to the airport, it was all reflexes, simply putting one foot in front of the other while my brain processed things.
Was Max’s body some kind of trophy? Did they need it to prove they’d finished the job?
Even if that were the case, why not kill her when it was easy and efficient, then haul her body away? Live hostages are a hassle—they struggle, they cry out. Why endure that?
Unless.
Unless that was exactly what the gang had been wanting this whole time.
Thinking back over it, recalling each of the confrontations, the gang could just as easily have been trying to capture Max as to kill her. Even the dogfight with Jerry Norgard’s plane—the Second Guerrillas hadn’t shot at us until we took off and gave them no choice.
My brain was clicking now, starting to spin with questions prompted by this new angle. And there seemed to be only one place to get them answered.
I pulled out the burner and opened the map. All the addresses I’d entered recently were still in there.
And Max’s house was only fifteen minutes away.
CHAPTER 19
A few quick turns put me back on Highway 360, which the map showed looping northward along the western edge of the city.
Finally, all the “hill country” comments made sense: Out here, the road was split, a grassy median separating the two sides as they undulated in parallel over a series of gentle rises and dips. In places, the earth had been cut away for the road, creating steep walls of striped, sedimentary rock. The trees grew thicker here, too, fringing the hilltops and filling the valleys. The sun, finally relinquishing its hold on the day, bathed the scenery in orange light.
I turned onto Westlake Drive, a quiet suburban street that looked like the kind you could find almost anywhere. Gradually, though, it dropped down into a dark, lush valley where twilight had firmly taken hold. As the road rose, fell, and twisted, you never had a sense of what would be coming next. Fewer and fewer houses were visible, only driveways that disappeared back into the shadows, punctuated by closed gates in earthen tones that seemed like a Texas twist on what I’d seen in Malibu.
The GPS said I was tracking the riverbank, drawing ever closer to Max’s house. If the gang had wanted to watch the place, they wouldn’t have had an easy time: the road was narrow, with no shoulder or parking places other than the driveways themselves.
Without streetlights, house numbers became harder to read in the gathering dusk. I slowed the car to a crawl, lowering my window to get a better view. The cool breeze r
ushing in and the soft hiss of my tires against the asphalt were the only sounds disturbing the oncoming night.
Finally, I found the number I needed, mounted on a wrought-iron gate drawn between two columns of stacked shale. A call box peeked out from hedges next to the columns. I rolled up to it, pressed the button, and heard a deep squelch, followed by electronic beeping. Although I expected to hear the voice of Marta, Max’s father answered after several beeps. “Yes?”
“It’s Seth Walker, Mr. Drew.”
Without another word, the gate swung open, and I started inside.
Small, hanging lamps outlined the driveway, which snaked up and around several terraced levels of earth. Although the thick oaks lining the property blocked any residual daylight, they were tall and mature enough not to obstruct the view of the house. From the bottom of the hill, it looked like some kind of majestically lit mission: wings bracketing a central section, all built from sandy-colored stone and topped with a dark tile roof.
By the time I reached the summit, Drew was already waiting in the front doorway, backlit by interior lights. As I parked and exited the sedan, he stalked across the cobblestone courtyard. “Mr. Walker. I’m so glad you finally came to your senses and brought Max home.”
“She’s not with me,” I said, closing the door with a dull thud.
Drew had drawn close enough that I could see his expression harden even in the dim light. “What the hell does that mean?”
“It means I need you to start being straight with me.”
“I don’t know what you’re—”
“Spare me the bullshit. The Second Guerrillas took Max—”
“They have her?” Drew’s chest swelled, his hands rising as if he wanted to strangle me. “How could you let that happen?”
Although I considered drawing the Sig, I didn’t bother. Even as roughed up as I was, I could take down an old pretty boy like Drew without it. “I didn’t have a whole lot of choice, you know, pinned down inside Otra Records by their machine guns.”
“You . . .” Drew’s hands dropped. “You were at Otra? You saw Charlie?”
“Before the Second Guerrillas killed him, yeah.”
“Charlie’s dead.” Drew glanced off into the distance for a moment, then turned. “Come on. Let’s . . . let’s go talk in the house.”
Drew led me inside, where an open staircase descended into a broad, two-story living room. The floors and walls were done in some kind of stone—granite, marble, I couldn’t tell—but the rear wall consisted of full-height, arched windows, gazing across a stone patio and lit pool to darkened trees and what I assumed was the river beyond them.
As we walked, Drew again used his finger to unlock his phone and check something. Apparently the work of the “brand” never stopped, even when its namesake had been kidnapped.
At the bottom of the stairs, Drew waved me to a sofa, then sat on another across a small cocktail table. Elbows on knees, he tucked the phone back inside his jacket before speaking. “I . . . I’m sorry I got upset outside. I didn’t mean any offense. Did you . . . Were you able to get information from Charlie before—”
I shook my head. “Not much.”
Drew’s hands went to his mouth, which was trembling. “I’m sorry. It’s just . . . Max is my little girl . . .”
Although it didn’t redeem him completely, the concern on Drew’s face sparked a pang of guilt in my gut. My godkids weren’t much younger than Max—if anything ever happened to them . . . “I understand, sir. And I promise I will do everything in my power to get her back safely. But that’s why I need you to start being honest with me. You know exactly who the Second Guerrillas are, don’t you?”
Closing his eyes, Drew nodded.
“You faked the death threats to get her protection. You knew they wanted to kidnap her. Why?”
Drew slumped back onto the couch. “They want what everyone wants. Money.”
“But why target you, of all people? It is you they’re targeting, isn’t it, not her?”
He glanced up to the ceiling. “You have to understand, everything Max needs—vocal coaches, acting coaches, tutors—it’s all very expensive. And I don’t know if you know the record business, but it takes a vise to squeeze a nickel out of those bastards. Garcia owes us so much in royalties . . .” Drew took a deep breath, then raised his eyebrows. “Anyway, I needed capital. So I borrowed—”
“Why not go to a bank?”
Drew grunted. “I don’t know what banks you deal with, Mr. Walker, but the current lending climate is not, shall we say, friendly. And a man with my history—single father, defaulted on my law-school loans, no W-2—I’m not considered the world’s best investment.”
He took a deep breath before continuing. “I heard about a private ‘investment group’”—he mimed quotation marks with his fingers—“here in town. Charlie recommended them.”
“Charlie turned you on to the Second Guerrillas?”
Drew nodded again, solemnly. Then, as if he heard my thoughts, he added, “Don’t get me wrong—I’m not suggesting he set us up with them on purpose. They seemed perfectly reputable at first. Certainly not like what they eventually turned out to be.”
“How much did you borrow?”
“Seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”
“And how much did they ask for?”
“Fifteen million dollars.”
A nice twenty-x multiplier. “And since you were having trouble getting money out of Garcia in the first place—”
Drew chuckled nervously. “Yeah, never quite got there. And at this point, even if I paid—”
“They’d just come back for more.”
He nodded, then stared at me silently for several moments. “What do we do next? How do we rescue Max?”
“I’ve got to find them first,” I said. “I don’t suppose you have a way . . .”
Drew shook his head. “They make contact when they want to make contact.”
“Have you heard from them today or tonight?”
“No.”
I realized we might not be alone. Dropping my voice to a whisper, I asked, “Is Marta here?”
“No. With Max away, I gave her some time off.”
“She’s in with them somehow. Voluntarily, or through coercion, I’m not sure which.” When Drew didn’t react, I asked, “Does that surprise you?”
He blinked several times and did something with his tongue in his mouth, like he was fiddling with his teeth. “I certainly didn’t know that until you just said it. But now that you do say it, no, I can’t say I’m shocked.”
“Marta leaked to them where Max and I were—that’s how they caught up with us. But I’m guessing she’s probably been leaking a lot of information to them. I also think the drugs were part of their plan, to keep Max vulnerable and—”
Drew’s voice rose now. “Wait, drugs? What drugs?”
“You didn’t know Max was taking prescription medication?”
For the first time since we’d come inside, anger flared across his face. “I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. What drugs?”
“Garcia said Oxycontin.”
“My God,” Drew said quietly. His eyes dropped to the floor. “Right under my nose.”
“Max was desperate to get back here. I think she was running out—or ran out—of her supply. Do you know where she would have gotten that stuff?”
“My first guess would have been Charlie.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think so. He mentioned trying to get her clean. What about Marta?”
“I can’t imagine her having anything to do with drugs. Especially not giving them to Max. Brad Civins, on the other hand . . .”
“The bodyguard you fired?”
“He has all kinds of shadowy connections from his time in the military. And afterward. Who knows what he could get his hands on.”
“Do you think he was working for the Second Guerrillas, too?”
Drew raised his eyebrows. “Now t
hat you say that, I think it’s possible. Probable, even. If they had Marta and Brad in their pocket, they’d know virtually everything we did.” After a pause, he asked me, “Will you go after Civins?”
“He and Marta are the only ties we have.”
“I really think Brad’s much more likely to be the source of the drugs than Marta.”
The papers Lavorgna had given me at the supermarket were still wedged in my pocket. I pulled them out and flipped through them quickly. “Looks like Civins has an address here in Austin.”
“You’ll need to be careful. He’s a tough customer.”
Folding the papers back up, I stood. “I’m not worried about that. I’m just worried about Max.”
Drew’s face blanched. “You think they’ll . . .”
“No. She’s alive, and there’s no leverage over you if they kill her. But she was sick from the withdrawal, and I have no idea how they’ll deal with that.” I looked Drew in the eye. “I’ll find Civins, and I’ll find Max. If the gang contacts you in the meantime, let me know immediately. All right?”
As he took down the burner number, Drew nodded slightly, his mouth drawing into a nervous but firm line.
“We’ll get her back, Mr. Drew. I promise.”
CHAPTER 20
Darkness had fallen completely by the time I left Drew. The papers Lavorgna had given me said Civins was using his GI bill to get started on a psychology degree over at UT. The map showed Civins’s address on the opposite side of the city, a short distance from campus.
The street number belonged to a sprawling apartment complex wedged along a busy thoroughfare between two strip malls filled with taco shops and tattoo parlors. As I drew closer, I could see it was one of those student ghettos you found in every state-college town: three stories of shoddy clapboard-and-concrete construction bearing a faded “Welcome Students” banner.
I turned at the next cross street and parked two blocks in. Returning to the complex on foot, I found it ringed by a six-foot-high metal fence that any other time I’d have been happy to scale but couldn’t possibly clear with my bad arm.
Instead, I circled the perimeter. Barely a third of the parking spots inside the fence were occupied. No signs of life. I guessed 8:00 p.m. meant students were out studying or drinking or something. Along one side of the lot, a rolling gate blocked the lone driveway. It looked to be triggered by some kind of radio remote control—they likely handed out clickers to anyone who moved in. With no way to spoof that frequency or trigger the capacitance sensor that would open the gate from the inside, I kept going.
