[Tom Reed and Walt Sydowski 04.0] No Way Back

by Rick Mofina

  Who was she? What happened to her?

  The shovel. The pick. Digging. Ann knew. Carrie was the other one. Wasn’t she? Oh God. Oh, Carrie, dear God, whoever you are, I’m so sorry. So, so sorry. Ann fought back her tears, her skin tingling as she struggled to push it all from her mind. She had no time. She swallowed. Took a deep breath.

  Think.

  She found fresh underwear, socks, clean jeans, a polo shirt, there was a woman’s toiletry bag. It had tampons, deodorant, toothpaste, a toothbrush, but she chose to use her fingers to clean her teeth. She found a hairbrush. After a few quick strokes, she rifled through the bag for anything to help. A cell phone. A gun. A knife. Something.

  There it was.

  She spotted it, seized it. Her mind accelerating, darting like a fleeing swallow. Hurry. This was hope. Her only chance. Come on. This was something. Come on—God, please help me.

  Ann jumped at the hammering on the bathroom door.

  “Get your ass out here!”

  34

  Reed left another message on Sydowski’s cell phone.

  “Walt, it’s Reed. Call me.”

  He couldn’t reach anybody since Molly called him about Arizona. Not Sydowski. Couldn’t reach Turgeon, Gonzales, or McDaniel. He tried Molly again at the paper. No luck.

  The investigators keeping vigil in his living room knew nothing more than he did, or were keeping tight-lipped. Nothing came up on the newscasts. Reed had accessed the Star's system from his home computer. Nothing about any breaks in the case on the wires. He hated being left in the dark. It felt like he was betraying Ann. Failing her. Do something.

  Reed searched the directories on his desk until he found a Phoenix number and dialed it.

  “Associated Press.”

  “I’m calling from the San Francisco Star. You hearing of anything breaking in your area that might be related to our jewelry store heist?”

  “Maybe. Just a minute.” A hand muffled the phone.

  Reed’s question was repeated to someone else. “Hang on. I’m going to transfer you.”

  The line clicked.

  “Hi, this is Julie Juarez. I think I know what you’re talking about. Hold on a sec.” Her keyboard began clicking.

  “Thanks.”

  “No problem. Here we go. Near Winslow. We should be moving something soon. We’ve got an alert from our stringer there. A report of police sealing an area after a discovery at Clear Creek.”

  “Discovery of what?”

  “Doesn’t say.” The keyboard tapped. “A police source told our stringer it’s related to that Death Valley homicide, the one linked to your heist. Says here Winslow and Navajo County are on it with the FBI’s evidence team out of Phoenix. Must be a corpse, or something like that.”

  A corpse.

  Reed hung up. His chest heaved. How much more of this was he supposed to take? From his study, he could see their bedroom. His eyes stung and he shut his door just as the phone rang. As the detectives had instructed from the outset, he let it ring twice before answering.

  “Tom, it’s Sydowski.” On his cell, grunting like he was ascending steps.

  “Walt, is it Ann? What they found in Arizona, is it her?”

  “No.”

  Reed closed his eyes, then opened them.

  “Are you absolutely sure this time?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Tell me more.”

  “A guy fishing near Winslow found the rest of the remains of the victim you saw in the desert. We’ve ID’d the victim as Carrie Dawn Addison of San Francisco.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Just got it confirmed through her fingerprints. Does her name mean anything to you, Tom?”

  “No. Should it?”

  “Just checking.”

  “What about Ann? Was there any trace, anything?”

  “No. I’m sorry.”

  “Any sign of where Ann is?”

  “Nothing yet. Tom, I don’t have much time. But there’s something you need to know, and you’d better be sitting down.”

  “I am.”

  “The remains the fisherman found were the head and hands.”

  “Jesus.”

  “They were in Ann’s bag. He found it in a picnic area trash can at Clear Creek, near Winslow.”

  No words came to Reed.

  “Tom, are you with me?”

  Reed managed to utter, “Yes.”

  “Tom, I’m telling you because it’s all coming out in a few hours. The task force is holding a media briefing at the Hall. We think Carrie Dawn Addison’s the connection because she once worked at Deluxe, the jewelry store. It’s a break. I wanted you to get it first from us. I’ve got to go.”

  Reed hung up, took a few deep breaths, absorbing the information, forcing himself to hang on and focus. After a long moment, he called Doris, alerted her to Arizona and the news conference. She wept for the dead woman’s family and for Ann.

  “I’m coming back to your house to be with you and Zach.”

  Reed admonished himself for being selfish. How could he forget what Ann was enduring, what had happened to Carrie Addison, Rod August, their families? Thinking of them, he steadied himself for what he had to do: tell his son what had happened before the entire Bay Area was informed.

  An F-18 jet fighter hung by a thread from the ceiling of Zach’s room. A large model of the aircraft carrier the USS Kitty Hawk sat majestically on one shelf, the walls were papered with the flag, posters of the 49ers, the Sharks, the Raiders, and U2.

  Half hidden by a curtain, there was a tattered poster of Reed. An ancient thing that had gone in Star boxes to promote his investigative series on unsolved homicides. Reed was usually blind to it. A younger, cockier version of himself haunted him. Not because it took him back to his dark, drinking days, but because he was a better reporter at the time. He took on everybody and won. A far cry from where he stood now, helpless to do anything to find Ann. Reed grasped a measure of comfort that at least his son still deemed him worthy for his wall of champions. Zach was sitting in the window seat looking at pictures from their recent family trip to Hawaii.

  “I heard you on the phone, Dad. They didn’t find Mom, did they?”

  “No. It was about the other woman in the desert.”

  “What about her?”

  Reed was apprehensive but told him the details.

  Zach’s face reddened. He blinked. “What about Mom?”

  “There’s nothing new,” Reed said. “And soon everyone will know the things I’ve just told you. It’ll be on the news and stuff.”

  Zach nodded.

  Reed sat on the edge of his son’s bed and fell into his thoughts, swallowed by a thousand fears—the religion editor’s caution on getting too close, Ann’s warnings, “You get the story but we pay the price.” Joking about cases with the homicide detectives at the Hall. The karmic wheel turning full circle on him, fate punishing him, locking its fingers around him, tightening.

  “Dad?”

  Zach stood before him and put his hand on his shoulder.

  “Sorry, Zach,” Reed said. “I’m trying to make sense of everything. I just don’t know what it means.”

  “I do. It means Mom’s not dead.”

  “I want to believe that.”

  “It means you have to find her.”

  “Find her? Me?”

  “Yes, because that’s what you do. You’re as good as anybody at finding people, even bad guys. You found lots of them, Dad. Now you have to find Mom.”

  Reed searched Zach’s eyes. They were radiant with the unshakable belief his mother was still alive. Did he possess some intangible link to her by virtue of having entered this world through her? His eyes were brown, like Ann’s, and at this moment, the way they caught the sun spilling through the window, Reed swore he was looking into her eyes, hearing her calling to him.

  Find me, Tom.

  Zach gripped his shoulder.

  “You can find her, Dad.”

  35 />
  Ann stepped from the bathroom into darkness.

  John was in the sofa chair watching the large muted TV, the room’s only light source.

  “Sit down and keep quiet.”

  Del was gone.

  For an instant Ann considered hurling herself through the window to run screaming for help. But the curtains hid its size. Was it a big window? Was it barred? Could she get by him before he stopped her?

  She saw that the phone had vanished. So had the phone book, the motel’s color brochures, offer cards—all the items that would identify the location. In the TV’s flicker she saw newspapers scattered on the veneer coffee table before it. USA Today and the New York Times. National papers available most anywhere. No sign of a local daily.

  She sat in a hard-backed chair at the small table well across the room on the other side of the beds, as far away from him as she could get. Her stomach growled with hunger pangs. John’s attention remained on the TV. They sat that way for nearly half an hour until Del returned with two brown bags filled with Chinese takeout, six-packs of canned beer, cigarettes, and snack food. He started pulling everything from the bag, setting it on the coffee table.

  “Before you eat, go check the bathroom,” John said.

  “Why?” Del said.

  “See if she tried to leave anything.”

  “I’m hungry.” Del got at the food, shoveling plastic forkfuls into his mouth. The aroma of deep-fried and stir-fried chicken, pork, and beef dishes filled the room. “I’ll do it later.”

  “Do it now.”

  Del cursed, bit into an eggroll, tromped to the bathroom, banged around, then exited and returned to the food. “Nothing.”

  John turned to Ann, dropped a soda can and two containers of food into one of the grease-stained bags, then tossed it to her. Rice, mixed vegetables, and ginger ale.

  “Anything on the news while I was out?” Del said.

  John shook his head. The two of them smacked their lips, guzzled beer, belching. Food and sauces rained on the carpet as they surfed between news and sports channels. When they finished eating, Del lit a cigarette, lay back on the couch, opened another beer, downed half, and looked at Ann.

  “Everything all right over there, darlin’?”

  She kept her eyes on the TV and didn’t respond.

  “You’re a pretty one, aren’t you?”

  Ann said nothing.

  “Well, you just let me know if there’s anything I can do for you.”

  “Leave her alone.” John went to the bathroom.

  A moment later he came out holding a small piece of folded paper. He tossed it to Del.

  “Read it.”

  The air tightened.

  “What’s this? Where’d you find it?”

  John’s jaw was clenched. “Just read it. Out loud.” He glowered at Ann.

  “Please call the FBI now,” Del read. “My name is Ann Reed, I was kidnapped by two men from the San Francisco Deluxe Jewelry Store armed robbery. I saw them shoot a police officer. We’re going east. Men are named John and Del. Two white males about six feet driving a red late-model SUV with Calif. plate starting—Jesus Christ—” Del leaped from the sofa. “We got to drop her now. Right now.”

  “Sit down.” John grabbed the note. “I’ll handle it.”

  “John, I’m telling you she’s too goddamned dangerous. She’s going to bring us down.”

  John stared at Ann.

  “We had a plan, John, and this crap with her was never part of it.”

  “Shut up.”

  “We passed that warehouse. It had a row of dumpsters. We could put four hundred miles behind us easy before sunrise.”

  John’s eyes never left Ann’s.

  “No witnesses. That’s what you said, John. It’s what you promised.”

  “I said shut up.”

  John started toward Ann. She stood, pressing her back to the wall. He held the note before her face. It was written on a page tom from the address book she’d found in the bag. She’d hidden it in the bathroom’s dish of complimentary soap and shampoo.

  “This,” he said, “is going to cost you. Get on the bed.” She didn’t move.

  “Get on the goddamned bed.”

  Ann shook her head. He swatted the small table aside. It thudded to the carpet, spilling her food everywhere as he grabbed her. In one lightning motion she was catapulted to the bed, his large hands pinning her to the mattress. “I warned you not to try anything.”

  Del stood over them, a beer in his hand, grinning.

  “Hand me our stuff, Del.”

  There was a chink of metal as he tossed him the bag they’d used in the armed robbery. John took out two sets of handcuffs and a chain; locked her wrists into the cuffs, which he linked to the bed’s metal frame, leaving her enough length to sit up or lie down.

  Before Ann could brace herself, the back of John’s hand cracked hard across her face, stinging, making her head throb. Stars blurred through her pain and tears. John’s face came within inches of hers.

  “Now you listen good.” He grabbed a fistful of her hair, yanking her head back until his eyes burned into hers. “You try anything like that again or make a sound, you’re gone. Got that?”

  Ann sniffed. Sobbing, she nodded.

  He stroked her hair. “No matter what you do, Ann, I’m in control, understand?”

  She understood.

  John flushed her note in the toilet, then returned to the TV and more beer with Del. He lit a fresh cigarette, shooting glances at her on the bed.

  Ann stared blankly at the TV. Long moments passed in silence. They’d found a channel showing the movie The Getaway, the Alec Baldwin, Kim Basinger version. Ann wept through much of it, watching the growing parade of empty beer cans lining the table near Del. He was engrossed by the sex scenes, loving the story line of the wife of the vet who appeared to enjoy having sex in front of him with the criminal who’d abducted both of them.

  “Look at that, darlin’,” Del said to Ann between slurps of beer. “Bet your husband’s fit to be tied about now.”

  “Shut up,” John told him.

  After the movie ended, John collapsed in the bed next to Ann’s. Del stayed on the sofa, his snoring soon punctuated with belches and farts. Ann’s chain jingled when she turned to the wall. In the darkness her reality was crystalline.

  I’m going to die. I’m wearing the clothes of a dead woman.

  I’ve been kidnapped by killers who’ve revealed their faces to me. They face the death penalty. They have nothing to lose. I’ll never see Zach and Tom again.

  No. Stop it. Fight back. How? Escape? How? If they wanted you dead, you’d be dead by now. Maybe they wanted to hold her for ransom, torture her, play some perverted game. How could she know? They were monsters. She had to get away.

  Ann froze.

  A large hand reeking of tobacco clamped over her mouth and pressed her head into the bed. She inhaled the stench of beer, cigarettes, and rotting teeth. She opened her eyes to Del’s, gleaming at her from the night. His other hand closed like a vise on her inner thigh.

  “Shh. We can be quiet, darlin’.”

  Ann shook, making the chain clink.

  “You’re going to like it.”

  No. Don’t. No.

  Del’s free hand reached for the zipper of her jeans. She struggled as he pulled it down, then reached for her lower stomach.

  No!

  The click of a gun’s hammer stopped everything.

  “I told you to stay away from her.” John’s gun was pressed to Del’s head.

  “Take it easy.” Del withdrew his hands and got up. “Take it easy. I was just having some fun.”

  “Stay away from her.”

  “Hell, John. You want to go first, or what? Huh? What is your thing with her? You going to tell me, or just let her mess up everything?”

  “You’ll know everything soon enough.”

  Del was urinating in the bathroom with the door open.

  “That’
s too late, partner. Too damned late.”

  He returned to the sofa. John returned to his bed. Soon both of them were snoring.

  Ann sobbed into her pillow. Then, slowly so the chains wouldn’t ring, she pulled her zipper up, fastening her jeans. God, please help me. She reached into her bra for Tom’s gift and a small folded piece of paper. Her second note. Without making a sound she slipped it under the sheet, praying that the motel staff would find it when they changed the linen.

  It was her only hope.

  Before sleep took her, she clutched Tom’s gift until she saw his face and those of Zach and her mother.

  36

  Tyler Vaughn, electrician for AJRayCo, stepped from his van at the Sundowner Lodge near the Rio Grande in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He leaned on the fender to study his work order for cabin 10. Finish off a small rewire job.

  He flipped through the pages on his clipboard to calculate how much cable he’d need, when the cleaning maid’s cart squeaked to a halt beside him.

  “Have you got work to do in there right now?” she said. Vaughn looked her over. “’Fraid so.”

  “Well, if that don’t beat all.” Her shirt and jeans complemented her figure as she looked back at the long asphalt path she’d climbed. “I push this heavy thing up here, ’cause I always start with number ten first, and find you. All set to go in and mess it more.”

  “Whoa, I won’t be long. We can work in there together.”

  “You going to mess things up?”

  “No, but I’ll have to cut the power; can give it to you when you need it.”

  “You won’t mess it more, make me have to come back?”

  “Promise.”

  “All right.”

  Inside, Vaughn went to the panel, figuring he could replace some of the ancient knob and tube wiring without a hitch. He’d definitely use Bx cable outside. He checked the outlets and the walls, flipped through his work sheets, then put them on the round table near the bed. It was all configured nicely. Yeah, this was a piece of cake.