Shadows from the Past

by Terry Ambrose

  “Oh, come on,” Roxy said. “How hard can this be? Just think of it as playing a video game with Lily.”

  “She beats me every time.”

  “You are somewhat challenged. You want me to take over?”

  Baldorf cleared his throat. “Uh, dude, This is not the same as a video game. He did fine in Papa Panaman’s house, so he’ll do awesome here. He just needs to get himself dialed in.”

  “Hello, you two, I’m right here,” Skip said.

  “Sorry, bro. Just remember, the drone has anti-collision programming. You’ll be cool.”

  Skip took a breath and began his descent. He watched the vertical clearance meter and stopped when he was about a foot above the roofline.

  “Awesome, dude. You’re turning into a pro. Now, get yourself about ten feet of clearance on the side of the house and begin a full scan of the perimeter.”

  “You mean find an open window or something?” Skip asked.

  “I love you, dude. I really do. Yeah, we want a window.”

  Skip watched the monitor as the drone circumnavigated the house. When he’d finished, he said, “That was a bust. This place is closed up tight as a drum. Any other ideas?”

  “What about an exhaust vent?” Roxy asked. “You know, like a bathroom fan or something?”

  “Typically closed until someone flips the switch,” Baldorf said. “And without a schematic, we can’t tell which ones might terminate in an appliance.”

  “Like a microwave?” Skip asked.

  “Roger that, bro. Bottom line is this joint can’t be infiltrated as easily as Papa Panaman’s.”

  Skip sighed and rolled his neck in a circle. His muscles were tight and ached. “We’re screwed. Aren’t we, Baldorf? I’ll have to break in.”

  “Not necessarily, bro. The LDLS will let us listen in from outside.”

  Skip shook his head. “Normal people-speak, Baldorf.”

  “Long Distance Listening System. We find a place to land, aim a laser at the window, and then detect the vibrations in the glass. The Soviets used it around 1947 when Léon Theremin invented the Buran eavesdropping system. It was totally awesome. They…”

  “Baldorf! Stop,” Skip said. “We need to know what they’re saying inside that house, not what the Russians did in nineteen-whatever.”

  “Forty-seven,” Roxy said.

  “Oh, dear God,” Skip said. “Don’t encourage him. Now, how do we set up this listening system of yours?”

  “I need to take control and set down somewhere with access to a window where the bad guys are hanging out.”

  “Wait. You know what room they’re in?” Skip asked.

  “Not yet, but I’m activating the infrared camera. Easy peasy.”

  Roxy shifted sideways in her seat and was shaking her head. “Are you sure this will work, Baldorf?”

  “Totally…well, almost totally.”

  Skip rubbed the back of his neck. “Let me guess, this is not ready-to-go technology.”

  “Parts of it are, but I’ve tweaked the algorithms to improve performance.”

  “‘Tweaking’ doesn’t sound very ready-to-go. What you’re really trying to say is this is experimental. We should find a better solution.”

  When there was silence from Baldorf, Skip turned to Roxy. “Look, we don’t have to use the drone. There’s no gate. Anybody could walk right in. If we know these guys are in the front part of the house, I could slip in through the back. The locks on these doors are probably old.”

  “Seriously?” Roxy’s jaw dropped, and she stared at him. “You really want to break into a house filled with armed, hardened criminals? What do you think they’re going to do if they find you? Invite you in for coffee?”

  “Uh, guys…”

  Skip and Roxy both looked at the laptop and snapped, “What?”

  “It looks kind of like we might be too late. From what I can see, two heat signatures just exited the house through the front.”

  In another panel on the laptop screen, two men appeared. They both walked through the front-gate opening, but one turned left and the other came their way.

  “We have company.” Skip eyed the approaching stranger in his rearview mirror. “And he looks suspicious. No gun yet, but this does not look good.”

  “Hold this.” Roxy handed the laptop to Skip, pulled on her door handle, and stepped into the street.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Roxy

  THE MOMENT I stepped out of the car, the guy who had left Juan Castaneda’s house went on alert and slipped his hand behind his back.

  “Can you help me?” I chirped. “My boyfriend totally got us lost and now his stupid GPS is sending us in circles.”

  His hand reappeared at his side, and that’s when I knew I had him.

  “I don’t live here, lady,” he said. “Take a left and go back to town.”

  I stopped, turned in a full circle, and shrugged. “Which way’s town?”

  “That way,” he snapped, then rolled his eyes and pointed to his left.

  “Gee, thanks,” I said as my hand came up with the Taser. I fired.

  The moment the man fell to the ground, Skip’s car door slammed. He rushed over, removed a gun from the man’s waistband, and winced.

  “Wow, so that’s what a Taser victim looks like.”

  “Hilarious. We’ve only got a few minutes before he recovers. I don’t suppose you have any zip ties on you?”

  Skip returned to the trunk, opened the bag containing his camera, binoculars, and other equipment. He pulled out two zip ties and handed them to me. “My motto is to always be prepared.”

  We locked the man’s hands behind his back, tied his ankles together, and stuffed a blue bandana in his mouth. Skip then dragged him over to the car, leaned him against it, and pulled out his knife. He held the tip of the blackened blade against the man’s throat. I’d seen enough of these guys in action to know they saw the rest of the world as being filled with wimps unable to commit cold-blooded murder. The bottom line? He probably saw Skip as a weak threat.

  I kneeled down and placed the Taser against the inside of the man’s thigh. “Say goodbye to your manhood.”

  The man shook his head violently and whimpered. Now I had his attention.

  Skip spoke in a low, conciliatory tone. “You know, buddy, I’m not exactly sure what being tased there will do to you, but I can guarantee it will hurt a whole lot more than what you just went through. The lady is pretty pissed off so I suggest you answer her questions.”

  “You like girls, right?” I said. “And you probably commiserate with your friends all the time about what bitches we can be. Unfortunately for you, you’ve met the queen. So, if the next words out of your mouth aren’t to tell me how many of you there are and where you’re all going to assemble, I will pull this trigger.”

  I pulled the bandana from the man’s mouth and he rambled something in Spanish.

  “Are you kidding me?” Skip snapped. “Pull the trigger.”

  “No! Sorry…lo siento…Mateo Carli, he want a crew of five. He want to kill some dude…uh…Panaman.”

  “Why?” Skip asked.

  The man’s eyes flicked toward Skip and he shook his head. “I don’t know. He no say. Please, don’t let her…”

  “And where are you going? What’s the address?” I demanded.

  The man rattled off an address on the other side of town. “That lying scum,” I muttered. “I save the dirtbag’s life and then he lies to me?”

  Skip did a double take, then seemed to realize I wasn’t talking about the poor schmuck I’d just tased. “You’re talking about the guy you saved earlier.”

  I nodded. “Whatever.”

  Despite the chill in the air, sweat beaded on our captive’s forehead. Skip had gotten one thing right, I was angry enough to turn our captured bad guy into a eunuch. I suspected that was one reason why my tough bitch routine had been so convincing. He’d seen the intensity in my eyes and knew I desperately wanted to take m
y anger out on someone.

  But we had a bigger problem now—what did we do with a snitch after we’d forced him to talk? It wasn’t like we could just say, ‘Sorry I tased you’ and send him on his way. Somehow, we had to make him more afraid of us than we were of him. No small feat when you’re dealing with someone who has no moral compass.

  “Why did you two leave first?” Skip asked.

  The man clamped his lips together. I couldn’t believe he thought he could clam up now. “Seriously? Do you think a guy like Juan will let you off the hook after what you’ve already told us? And then there’s this.” I pressed the Taser against the denim of his jeans.

  He struggled against his ties, and I rolled my eyes. “How dense can you get?” I bent down and increased the pressure on the Taser, which caused the man to whimper and his eyes widen further.

  “Juan going to kill me.”

  “Right on that score,” I said. “But after what I’m going to do to you, you’ll wish you were dead. Your only option is to cooperate with us. If you don’t, I’ll tase you and then deliver you to Juan myself.”

  The man’s eyes darted from me to Skip, who grabbed our victim by the collar. “Let’s stop wasting time. Pull the trigger. I’ll carry him to the porch.”

  “We were getting more guns,” the man blurted. “Mateo wanted heavy stuff. He don’t want nobody getting away.”

  We also learned that this guy’s partner was expecting him at a storage locker. After that, the plan was for all five to meet in an hour at the house Sonny Panaman was renting. I stuffed the bandana back in the guy’s mouth and grimaced.

  “What do you want to do?” I asked.

  “I have an idea,” Skip said. Then, he grabbed the man’s collar. “Which car is yours?”

  The man jerked his head at a car parked directly ahead of us.

  Skip nodded. “That’s convenient.” He hoisted our captive to his feet. “Let’s go.”

  I stood to the side, my hands on my hips. “What are you doing?”

  “Our friend here is going to have a hard time explaining his next actions. He’s about to get drunk.”

  I snickered. That was one way to deal with a problem, but I wasn’t convinced it was a good one. I cocked my head to one side as I gazed at Skip. “I saw that bottle of Jack in the rear seat of the car.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “Skip, we don‘t have that much time.”

  “You have a better idea?”

  In a quiet voice, I said, “Yeah. I do.” I went to the car, grabbed my purse, and returned to where Skip still held our prisoner.

  “This should speed the process.” I took a small bottle out and placed one pill in my palm. “Give him this with the whiskey for effect. He’ll be out in minutes.”

  Skip gaped at me. “You’re taking sleeping pills?”

  My chest felt warm, and the heat gradually rose up my neck and into my cheeks. I grimaced, then nodded. “I’ve been so worried about not being able to hold a job—I haven’t been sleeping. The doctor prescribed those, but warned me about using them too often. I figure if I can get one good night’s sleep every week…”

  “It’s okay,” Skip said.

  But I could see the disapproval on his face. I’d known since I’d gone to the doctor that Skip would not be happy about me taking pills. I didn’t want to do it, but I had to provide for Lily.

  Skip’s jaw was a hard line. “We’ll get through this.”

  He jerked the man forward and dragged him to his car. Skip opened the bottle of Jack Daniels and forced the pill into the man’s mouth, then made him drink.

  “You don’t suppose that’s going to kill him, do you?” I asked.

  Skip gave the man another swallow of whiskey, then held his jaw and looked into his eyes. “Here’s the thing, my friend. You’re probably not going to remember much of anything from tonight. And even if you do, and you try to explain what happened, who’ll believe a guy and his girlfriend forced you to get drunk? So drink up, you’ll have a hangover in the morning, but at least you’ll be alive.”

  The man peered at Skip; his eyes already glazing over, then took another swallow from the bottle. I shined the flashlight on my phone at him. He squinted, tried to look away, and his pupils dilated slowly.

  “He’s already on the way,” I said.

  Skip was holding the bottle to the man’s lips, allowing him to guzzle another swallow, when a cell phone pinged. “That’s probably the other guy wondering where this one’s at,” he said.

  “Probably.” I found the man’s phone, read the screen, and nodded. “That’s it. He’s officially late.”

  This was going so wrong. The only good thing was that our informant was drifting off to sleep. Skip poured a little of the whiskey over the man’s chin and clothing.

  “Should we send a response?” I asked, then shook my head. “No, don’t.”

  “All we have to do is arrange it so Mateo doesn’t get his heavy artillery and is short on manpower.”

  “Skip, we’re running out of time.”

  “Actually, what we’re running short of are options. We could go to the police and tell them what we know, but we’re already in too deep. Besides, do you seriously believe you can explain to them why Sonny Panaman started this whole thing—and not have them become suspicious about where the money came from?”

  My heart pounded in my chest. It was one of those questions I’d wrestled with since I’d taken Lily in—could a con artist ever live a normal life? “I’m trying to leave that behind.”

  “Exactly. Roxy, until tonight, I never knew how much money you had. Lily let it slip that you were talking to her about how she could go to any college she wanted. I put one-and-one together and figured you’d somehow walked away with everything Jack Welton had. Even at that, I had no clue it was three million bucks. But the reality is, that’s a hard number to explain to the police.”

  “I know.”

  He shrugged. “I don’t care what you’ve done in the past. I don’t care where the money came from. All I want is to get Lily back and then move on with our lives—together.”

  I gazed at him, chewed on my lower lip, and wondered what I had done to deserve this man. Baldorf had once told me Skip would do anything for me. My breath caught in my throat. He already had. More than once. My vision blurred, and I blinked several times to shake the feeling growing inside me.

  I sniffled, then gave Skip a weak smile. “I’m glad you know. It’s been eating at me for a long time now.”

  The phone in Skip’s hand pinged again, the guy in the car snorted and slumped to one side. Skip sighed and looked at the display.

  “He’s getting ready to call Mateo.”

  “Fine. We need to go with the rat in the closet trick.”

  Skip peered at me. Oh, great. He didn’t know that one either.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Skip

  ROXY LET OUT an exasperated sigh and shook her head. “You really know nothing about cons, do you? When you’re running a job and you can no longer trust someone, you bait them with what they really want. If they go for it, you isolate them. It’s like tricking a rat to go into a closet or a box with no exits.”

  Skip snickered as he watched her face. “So we’re putting out the cheese for these guys?”

  “You’re impossible. Whatever. That storage place is only about ten minutes from here. Tell him our guy will be there. You take his car, and I’ll take ours. When we get there, you hang back until I subdue the partner. We’ll lock them both inside the storage locker.”

  “That’s my girl. But I’ll tell you what, you send the text while I muscle this one into the passenger’s seat.” Skip had just closed the car door when Roxy let out a little yip.

  “I‘ve got the gate code. We’re good. Are you okay to get going?”

  “My back is killing me, but I’ll make it through.” Skip twisted from side-to-side, then glanced at Juan Castaneda’s house. “Oh no. A light flicked on in one of the back rooms. It’s a small win
dow…could be a bathroom.” Skip tapped his earpiece and said, “Baldorf, can you tell what’s going on in that house?”

  “For sure, dude. Looks like someone went to the little boy’s room. Tinkle time before they hit the road?”

  “Roxy, let’s get the drone back in the cradle,” Skip said. “We have to get moving.”

  Skip drove the car of the man they’d drugged, and Roxy took Baldorf’s. As he drove, Skip tried his best to ignore the man, who was out cold, snored intermittently, and stank of booze and sweat. To pass the time, he bantered back-and-forth with Baldorf. At one point, he asked if Baldorf had another earpiece he could give to Roxy.

  “For sure. There’s a small case in the trunk next to the cradle for the drone. It’s got two more of those along with the poison dart tips for the MD-1.”

  “Wait…what? You have poison dart tips?”

  “Not real, dude. They’re loaded with a placebo. You know, like to show how the MD-1 could deliver a fast-acting sedative or toxin. Call it a demo.”

  Skip chuckled. “I had this flash of us using a swarm of those mosquito drones to knock out all the bad guys and walk out with Lily while they have a slumber party.”

  Ahead, Roxy’s brake lights came on as she she slowed for the gate. She stopped, punched in the code, then proceeded slowly.

  “Gotta go,” Skip said. “We’re here.”

  He followed Roxy’s car. Security lighting cast each row of storage units into a surreal landscape of empty rows filled with rolling steel doors. Skip felt like he was trapped in an apocalypse movie and they were the last two people left in town. Roxy turned down the row where a car waited outside one of the storage spaces.

  A man wearing a dark hoodie and baggy jeans emerged from the unit. He stared at the two cars and seemed to debate what to do next.

  Roxy parked in the middle of the aisle and opened her door. Skip hoped the maneuver worked and that the man was thinking his friend couldn’t get by the dumb blonde who was walking toward him. He rolled down his window and listened.